ADVENTISM MAKING THEIR PROPHET LOOK GOOD

By Colleen Tinker

Over the past ten years, online searches for information about Ellen White have yielded more results from non-sympathetic sources than from Adventist sources. The White Estate has finally decided to fix this problem.

“The White Estate’s mission,” according to the August 31 issue of Adventist Review, “is to preserve and share the legacy of Ellen White’s writings.” In addition, the White Estate has made EGW’s writings available online.

Meanwhile, online information revealing Ellen White’s inaccuracies and the deception within Seventh-day Adventism and the organization’s reliance on a false prophet has burgeoned. Currently, documentation about Ellen White’s unreliability outranks Adventist sources in most internet searches. 

“An abundance of false claims and disinformation about Ellen White and the Spirit of Prophecy litters the internet,” says Tim Poirier of the Ellen G. White Estate, “often appearing prominently in online searches. It has been an issue for well over a decade.”

Accordingly, the White Estate “entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Center for Online Evangelism (COE)” on August 31. COE is a non-profit, independent Adventist ministry that provides technological resources to the Adventist organization. COE has been operating an initiative called “Project Caleb” which has intentionally been improving the online presence not only of Adventism in general, but of the writings and reputation of Ellen White specifically. This new partnership with the White Estate is the final project in COE’s “Project Caleb”. 

COE’s main objective is to “optimize Adventist content to rank higher in online search listings, causing the inaccurate or malicious content to become significantly less visible.” 

Jim Nix, the director of the White Estate, explains their purpose, saying Ellen White has played and still plays a “vital role” in Adventism. “She’s given us much counsel in such a wide variety of areas.” He characterizes the material exposing Ellen White as either “not true” or “half-truths”, and he said that the White Estate and COE are committed to making “sure that when you search the internet, what you find is factually accurate and helpful.”

Besides shoring up the public presence of pro-Ellen White materials, both the White Estate and COE are anticipating expanding their Adventist online evangelism by creating online material to answer, from an Adventist perspective, the frequently-Googled searches for the terms “Jesus”, “God”, and “Bible study”. 

The executive director of COE, Ed Wagner, summarizes this new collaboration: “We look forward to the day when positive, truthful information about Ellen White will be prominent throughout the internet.”

Implications

The first deduction from the story of the Adventist organization scurrying to improve Ellen White’s online reputation is that a growing number of people have been discovering the truth about the prophet’s deception. Not only are they discovering how unbiblical and contradictory her writings are, but they are writing and sharing this information online where exponentially larger numbers of people can discover these facts anonymously in their own homes. 

This online sharing has undercut the controlled reputation-management the Adventist organization has historically maintained, both in reference to its prophet and to its own practices. Not surprisingly, the Adventist organization doesn’t like the exposure; it will do whatever it can to outmaneuver those who are finding the truth.

Secondly, the Adventists perpetuate their own deception by characterizing all “negative” online material about Ellen White as inaccurate, untrue, false disinformation that “litters the internet”. It is, from the Adventist perspective, trash—useless refuse only deserving to be swept away and ignored. 

Once again, when confronted with the realities of Ellen White’s flaws, contradictions, and unbiblical conclusions, the Adventist organization deflects instead of facing the problem head-on. Without doubt, the Seventh-day Adventist organization would fall apart without Ellen White and her central doctrines of the great controversy and its core of the investigative judgment. 

Even though Adventist scholars know that the Bible cannot support the investigative judgment, the leaders continue to adjust Adventism’s public image, propping up their false prophet and attempting to eclipse the material that reveals the truth.

As annoying as this defensive protection of deception is, the truth is that it cannot ultimately succeed. Oh, it may appear to have an effect; Adventist sources may outrank critical sources online at some point. Nevertheless, truth has the last word.

How do we know that Adventism’s public relations machine will not be able to overrule the exposure of their own false prophet? 

We know because the Bible tells us what God is doing. 

First, before he died, Moses assured the Israelites on the verge of entering the Promised Land that God would give them His Prophet and His words even after Moses was dead. Deuteronomy 18: 15–22 says this:

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”

The New Testament confirms that Jesus Himself is this prophet like Moses to whom they were to listen. In fact, God confirmed this fact on the Mount of Transfiguration when, after Moses and Elijah were transfigured with Jesus before Peter, James, and John, a cloud covered the three, and God’s voice said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Mt. 17:5). 

The author of Hebrews also explicitly states where we receive our spiritual instruction in the new covenant: 

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs (Heb. 1:1–4). 

Jesus, not a prophet, is our Source of all information we need for salvation and the nature of God. Jesus has done everything necessary for our salvation. We do not need additional “light” regarding vegetarianism, seventh-day Sabbath-keeping, or the presumed material nature of man. In fact, these additions are heresies. 

In Galatians 1:8 Paul even says that if anyone, even an angel from heaven, preaches any gospel contrary to the one he preached, he is to be accursed! Paul also stated in 1 Timothy 4:1–6 that any teachings forbidding foods or marriage were doctrines of demons. 

Peter, the apostle who had the shocking vision of the sheet filled with unclean animals accompanied by the command from God to “Kill and eat” (Acts 10:9–16), warned us that false teachers like the false prophets of old would arise:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep (2 Pet. 2:1–3). 

We can know that a prophet who speaks words contrary to or in addition to what Scripture teaches must not be believed. We do not need to fear them or their dire warnings. We can know that God has given us all we need in His Son and in His word. 

Adventism is a late-blooming religion that is not founded in the biblical, apostolic gospel. Its doctrines have all derived from the endorsement of Ellen White’s visions, and she has added to the simple gospel that the Lord Jesus, God the Son who could not sin nor fail in His mission, died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day. 

Ellen White is a false prophet. No matter how much work the Adventist organization puts into boosting her reputation and visibility, they cannot make her “true”. 

God Himself is in charge of His own reputation, and He will not share His glory with another (Is. 48:11). In fact, He has stated His anger toward the false prophets through Jeremiah:

“Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD. I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal? Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD. Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who use their tongues and declare, ‘declares the LORD.’ Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the LORD, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the LORD. (Jer. 23:23–32).

Ellen White claimed the Lord showed her the things she said. She stole words from other authors and ideas from other people. She spoke lying dreams and still leads her Adventist people astray. 

God cannot lie; He keeps His promises, and He will not allow a deceptive organization to deceive those who seek the true Jesus. No matter how hard they try, Adventism will not ultimately have the last word.

The Lord God has the last word, and His word alone is eternal. The lying prophets will be silenced, and they will experience the consequences God has said they deserve.

The Lord God is sovereign. Adventism is not a surprise to Him, and He is dealing with it. He is actively drawing His sheep out of that false organization into the kingdom of His beloved Son. In fact, those of us who have left Adventism for the gospel know that having been in that deceptive organization drove us to a much deeper study of Scripture than we would likely have done had we not had to shed a false worldview. 

Even if Adventism succeeds in gaining supremacy in online rankings of Ellen White searches, the Lord Jesus reigns, and we can trust God’s eternal word.

Sources and Resources

https://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story6437-white-estate-launches-partnership-with-center-for-online-evangelism

Ratzlaff, Dale, Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventism available here: https://www.ratzlaf.com/Books_c2.htm

Tinker, Colleen, “Who Is The Source?” Proclamation!, Fall, 2009, available here: http://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/proclamation/2009/4/whoisthesource.html

Ratzlaff, Dale, “Three Adventist Doctrines that Compromise the Gospel”: https://youtu.be/5De3ZPPhrKc

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Colleen Tinker

Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine, and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share an office and a commitment to sharing the gospel of the true Jesus with all of those seeking a way out of the bondage of the false gospel of Adventism.

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